Non-developers Should Downgrade iPhone Back to iOS 6.1.4, 6.1.3 Before iOS 7 beta 2 Out

iOS 7 is bound to be a revolutionary update in Apple’s history, it get rid of the past crystal clear appearance, to more focus on user experience and content. For the recent iOS 7 beta 1, many people have experienced it, whether developers or non-developers all can upgrade 6.1.x to beta 1 easily.

But as a beta version, it has an expiration time, all beta builds of iOS firmware have their expiration dates. Apple has implemented such a tradition to make sure that iOS devs who test these operating systems either update to the next build presented or download the iOS version officially launched by the Cupertino-based company.

But if you do nothing in the beta 1 expires, and stay on the firmware version after it has expired. Well, your iPhone / iPad / iPod touch will get into Recovery Mode if you forget to update to the next iOS version presented by Apple.

So if you are a Non-developer, you’d better choose to downgrade your iPhone back to the 6.1.x firmware that Apple is still signing before beta 1 expired.

If you are a developer with an Apple dev account, do not worry about anything, you can downgrade or upgrade your iOS anytime.

iOS 7 beta 2 will have the same expiry date which will be 1.5 months after its been released, and then you can also choose to upgrade 6.1.x to beta 2 again – Non-developers without an iOS developer license; Developers can directly upgrade their device from beta 1 to beta 2 or downgrade back to 6.1.X ipsw.

Tips: Please download well the corresponding 6.1.X firmware of your iPhone for contingencies in advance.

How to downgrade your iPhone iOS 7 beta back to 6.1.X

Note: For the iOS 6.1.2 firmware, currently only iPhone 4 device can be downgraded to it, and requires the 6.1.2 SHSH blobs + APTickets saved in the local before.

Note: keep in mind that you may only downgrade to the latest publicly available firmware for iOS on an A5 device, even if you have SHSH blobs saved. For older devices like the iPhone4, you may be able to downgrade to lesser firmware if you happen to have your SHSH blobs saved.

If an iTunes 3194 error appeared in downgrade process, you can easily fix it by modifying hosts file on your PC or Mac:

For Windows, go to C: /Windows/System32/drivers/etc/ and search for the file named “hosts”

For Mac, the file is in /etc/

Open this file using Notepad (or any other text editing application can be used for the purpose) (for Windows users, open this with Administrator Privileges)

Usually you’ll encounter this line at the bottom of the page:

74.208.105.171 gs.apple.com

Either comments this line out by typing a single ‘#’ (without the quotes) in front of the line (before 74) or remove the line entirely.

Once done, save the hosts file and then go for updating your iPhone through the iTunes.